EnderAndrew

I don't think a high intelligence should be necessary because KOTOR is an action-oriented-cinematic style RPG. It's not catered to social role-players. However, I would like to see atleast a few quests that could be resolved with dialouge options open to people with certain skill or attribute requirements. I'm a big fan of multiple resolutions for a given quest.

Malak wasn't the greatest villian in appearance or dialouge, but he didn't look bad per se. I think it's rather interesting in human pysche the way we often associate a disfigurement with villians. Some people assume Hitler was a psycho because he had syphillis, not because he had a predisposition to being a psycho. Sadly, there is evidence to the trend. Serial killers often bear some sexual disfigurement, or inadequacy. Movie villians often bear facial disfigurements.

I think a lot of people gloss over the fact that KOTOR 1 actually had a Force Adept NPC basically. That option was also open to you. If you felt constrained by the Jedi Order, and didn't want to embrace the sith either, you could alternate between good and evil deeds as you saw fit. I would like to see more grey response options. I know the setting of Star Wars is more spaghetti western in dividing good and evil, but if the player wants to play grey, let them. They won't receive the lower "mana" costs of light and dark side powers by being associated with light or dark. And am I the only person in the world who doesn't care for a "mana" style system used with the Force?

Not trying to come off as abrasive here or anything, but the devs have made it fairly clear that you will start the game as a human jedi. In most RPGs, I like being able to fully customize my experience with a detailed character creation process. Morrowind is great in this regard. However, many great RPGs (Like the Final Fantasy series and Planescape: Torment) focus on having a SPECIFIC storyline for a SPECIFIC character. By limiting certain aspects of character creation, they can focus the story more on your character. In those RPGs, you generally have a set path you must follow. KOTOR is fairly unique in focusing on the PC in the storyline, while allowing you to play good or evil. That is a stylistic choice necessary for the story they are choosing to tell. If would have been impossible to incorporate race in KOTOR:1. Revan as a Wookie, or a Yoda? For those who enjoy a blaster over a lightsaber, other NPCs provide you that opportunity.

For me, in order of preference, it would be: 1 Bigger levels/worlds 2 Sidequests 3 Combat System Tweaks 4 NPCs more responsive to alignment 5 Improving the sidegames 6 More cutscenes 7 New Animations 8 New Force Powers 9 New Feats 10 Immersion stuff (hoods, robes, hilts)

I love all those suggestions. For me, buying a new swoop is the least important. That might involve too many models to deal with. I'll be happy if I can mod mine in the first place.

The demos show animation with no numbers, but I don't know if that will be a final feature. I also haven't seen anything concrete on interface. I know there will be a weapon-switch button, but that's it. I'd like to see the ability to pre-map options to certain buttons in combat (especially but NPCs, or set behavior scripts)

I've seen repeated comments on this forum of people complaining that the game was too easy. I powergamed, and went for the offensive-minded combat-whore character. I found combat fairly easy. And while many found Malak to be a challenge, I was disappointed that I so easily killed him on the first try. Yet, my girlfriend played a Scoundel character. She didn't get every XP bonus, nor get every piece of equipment because she played few side-quests. Thusly, combat was much more difficult for her. A difficulty setting would fix this problem. However, instead of simply asking if you want Easy, Difficult, or Jedi Master, the game should ask you one or two gameplay style questions and adapt from there. For instance, "Are you a completist, who feels the need to do every quest and explore every area, or do you like to complete games as quickly as possible and play mainly for story?" Lastly, players should not be penalized in xp for avoiding combat, or resolving issues in non-combat fashion. And while the PC wouldn't be a scoundrel or scout since we're starting as Jedi, players should get xp for successfully evading combat via stealth. My girlfriend only received steal xp once, on the Ebon Spire.

My big beef with combat was how simple and boring combat was in KOTOR. Don't get me wrong. I though KOTOR was great in many regards, but combat seemed the weakest part of the game for me. You picked one type of combat feat to specialize it, and chose that as your action all day long. The animations were always the same, and you could have left something mashing the buttons while you ran to the fridge. The devs should pick a direction to improve this upon. If you want the game to be more cinematic, that means getting away from numbers above the head, and mapping your choices to certain buttons ahead of time. One button could be "default" attack, the next button "secondary" attack, and the next button would pause combat, bringing up the interface for a moment to select any other option. You could map a feat, or a force power to either attack button, or leave them simply at default attack. My assumption is this would be easiest to implement. Combat would still be fairly boring, but it might move quicker, and look nicer. You can focus on the better looking animations. The second option to is vary combat a little more. Since you can quick-swap between weapon configs easily, I'm guessing the enemies will be more varied in a given area which would encourage more strategy in combat. I think this is a step in the right direction, but still not perfect. Ideally, I'd like to combat have a few more options in general. Even if the option simply comes down to an aggressive, defensive, or speed attack setting.

Part of Star Wars for me is customizing equipment. I want to be able to take the Ebon Hawk, and upgrade it the way the Falcon was upgraded. The same goes for the Swoop Bike. Not much is done with space travel in the engine, so I imagine it would be easier to integrate Swoop upgrades. the minigames were not well received in KOTOR, but I think they could become a strong selling point in the sequel, and add to replay value and overall enjoyment of the game with some tweaking. Pazak inherently is a love-it-or-leave-it game. Either you enjoy card games and gambling, or you don't. Swoop racing however had great potential and was poorly executed. I think it has great potential for improvement. The turret game is a microcosm of much more indepth games, and would likely entail heavy additions to engine to make it more responsive/immersive/meaningful. In addition to upgrading the swoop, here are a few other suggestions I hope the devs might integrate. Race another swoop instead of racing the clock - Having twenty swoops on one track would likely kill framerate, as well as make it impossible to hit speed-ups. However, a one-on-one race would be more exciting, and in some ways more difficult. It adds layers of strategy. Do you race aggressive, bumping each other out of the way of speed-ups, or stay away and shoot for a different path? It would also be immediately more fun and rewarding than racing against your own time. Race fans don't watch when people test for pole position. They watch cars race each other on the same track. Unhindered by traffic, pole times are much faster, but traffic makes the race interesting. Have tournaments of concurrent races without saving inbetween - You should have the option for a single exhibition race, or to enter into a tournament. The tournament should have SEVERAL levels of difficulty to add-to replay. Those who have a low repair, or lack the parts for upgrades might win the first few rounds and win a few bucks. You can come back later with the best upgrades and try to take home a cup. I think you should be able to save after exhibition matches, but not inbetween rounds of a tournament. It might frustrate players, but it will add a level of challenge (adding in replay value) so you can throw in a huge purse as an incentive. Have more than three tracks - I'm not a developer on the game, and I don't know the engine. The tracks are basically 2D, and relatively simple. They don't seem that difficult to develop, nor store. The main difficulty with several tracks I see is making them unique and creating new textures. I'd at least like to see the move to four tracks. Thoughts, suggestions?

It took me well over a month to sign up for the forums. I tried upwards of 20 times to get a validation email at gangrel@punkass.com, and at enderandrew@sluggy.net I kept hitting resend validation email, and I finally got one, well over a month after the first time I ever tried signing up here.